1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates generally to the field of network service and content delivery and utilization, and specifically in one aspect to delivering such services and content to particular subsets or groupings within the user base of a content distribution network.
2. Description of Related Technology
In the context of network services, it is often highly desirable to provide users of the network with ready and instant access to a variety of different types of content, accessible at different locations, and on different platforms. In many cases, it is also desirable to provide the same user with “secondary” content (such as e.g., advertisements, promotions or “info-mercials”, related shorts, telescoping information/advertisements, hyperlinks, etc.). The secondary content may be directly or indirectly related to the “primary” content which the user selected in the first place (such as via a common theme or context, common persons of interest, common demographic factors, etc.), or can be totally unrelated.
Delivery of secondary content may comprise a major source of revenue for commercial television or movie distributors, and for the network operator. For example, where the secondary content comprises advertisements, it may be a main source of income for national television broadcasters and their local over-the-air affiliates. Cable, satellite, hybrid fiber-copper (HFCu), and other content distribution networks, as well as Internet content providers, also derive income from the sale of advertising time and insertion opportunities (or “impressions”).
Moreover, an advertiser may seek to maximize the return on their advertising investment by targeting specific users or groups of users that are likely to be most receptive to the commercial message embodied in the advertisements. The aforementioned selective “targeting” and delivery of content to e.g., subscribers in a cable network is generally well known in the prior art. For example, it may be desirable to include certain types of advertising at specific demographic or geographic segments of an MSO's subscriber base. One way of targeting viewers involves selecting advertisements based on a geographical region in which the advertisement is to be delivered; i.e., a so-called “advertisement zone”. In other words, it is advantageous to provide certain advertising content to viewers in one local or regional area which is different than that provided to the viewers in a different local or regional area.
For example, the advertisements may be limited by the geographic area in which a business operates. Hence, it typically only makes financial sense for an advertisement for that business to be provided in geographical areas where the business is operated or provides services. Similar logic applies to the demographic, psychographic, and other planes; e.g., an advertisement for a super-high end sports car would likely be wasted when delivered to lower middle-class households or subscribers (which may or may not be correlated to geography), as would an advertisement for a feminine product delivered to a predominantly male audience. Additionally, the context of the primary content may not be compatible with particular types/themes of secondary content (e.g., a VOD movie having a non-violent theme might not mesh optimally with advertisements for UFC sporting or boxing events, regardless of demographics or geography).
Hence, as used herein, the term “advertising zone” may include the delivery of advertisements, promotions, or other secondary content with an actual geographic zone, a demographic “zone” or logical space, a psychographic zone or logical space, a user-based preference space, a primary/secondary content context space, and so forth.
In a typical U.S. cable or terrestrial content distribution system, downstream RF channels used for transmission each occupy a 6 MHz spectral slot in the available bandwidth (between approximately 54 MHz and 870 MHz). Established analog and digital cable television services including standard definition (SD) broadcasts utilize this spectrum. The spectrum is also shared with the deployment of next-generation services such as video on-demand (VOD), high definition (HD) broadcast/simulcast services, personal video recorder (PVR), and digital video recorder (DVR) services, as well as high-speed data (HSD). For this reason, the exact RF (physical) channel used for a given service may differ from plant to plant. However, within a given cable plant, all homes that are electrically connected to the same cable feed running through a neighborhood will receive the same downstream signal. For the purpose of managing services, these homes are grouped into logical aggregations or clusters typically called “service groups”. Homes belonging to the same service group generally receive their services (e.g., broadcast or VOD service) on the same set of RF channels. In current cable systems, a correct advertising zone may be determined for a legacy STB through use of a Service Group ID (Service_Group _id). Specifically, when the STB boots up, it learns its Service_Group_id from the edge QAM (eQAM) from which it receives video (each such eQAM is manually configured to be associated with a Service_Group_id). When the VOD client on the STB requests a primary content element (e.g. video), the Service_Group_id is contained in the requesting message. The application server receives the message, extracts the Service_Group _id, performs a lookup to determine which advertising zone is associated with that Service_Group_id, and then instructs the VOD server to serve the appropriate version of the requested video which contains the secondary content associated with the STB's advertising zone.
This architecture, however, is generally not optimal for the delivery of targeted content based on e.g., geographic or logical boundaries, since inter alia the level of targeting granularity that can be achieved is very low (i.e., there is a lack of precision in determining who receives what). Geographic boundaries (or zones) are not precise, and often do not overlap well with the network distribution configuration—a service group may in fact straddle two or more geographic regions of interest (e.g., zip codes, metropolitan markets, etc.). Accordingly, it is often impossible for network operator to draw precise lines of demarcation between different subsets or groups of its viewers. As a simple case, consider where an operator wishes to deliver particular content to all of the residents of Town X. Depending on where Town X is situated in proximity to its neighbors, its residents may be served by multiple different distribution nodes or hubs of a cable system. Or, certain portions of the Town may be serviced by one system operator and other portions by another. This can lead to very crude and imprecise delivery of content, with a potentially significant rate of error (error here being defined as instances where content should have been delivered to a particular premises but wasn't, or alternatively should not have been delivered but was).
Further, this architecture (as well as other prior art architectures enabling distribution of content to devices outside the traditional home network) is not optimal for the delivery of targeted content to devices capable of utilizing the now-ubiquitous Internet Protocol (so called “IP devices”). Under the prior art, video destined for an IP device would be served to that device by a web or Internet video streamer such as Real Network's Helix™ Server, Microsoft® SilverLight™, or Adobe® video server. These servers comprise separate entities from the VOD servers that are used to serve on-demand content to non-IP devices, referred to herein as “legacy devices” (e.g., set-top boxes). Thus, according to the prior art, in order to serve content having the same inserted advertisements to both IP and legacy devices, various operationally “painful” (aka complex) mechanisms are required for maintaining two advertisement insertion systems, two video server systems, and in some cases two advertisement campaign managers, each of the foregoing serving either the legacy devices or the non-legacy (e.g., IP) devices, yet being synchronized to ensure that the same advertisements are inserted for viewing on the separate platforms. As one may imagine, this approach is costly, time consuming, and prone to error.
Moreover, the MSO, content source (e.g., studio), and/or advertiser may wish to apply other rules to secondary content selection and insertion (i.e., in addition to or in place of the aforementioned zone preservation). For instance, an MSO might want to give its subscriber the ability to tailor the secondary content it receives based on e.g., the subscriber's preferences, the subscriber's location, etc. Current secondary content selection and insertion paradigms are substantially limited in this regard, being based on Service_Group_id or the like as previously described.
Hence, apparatus and methods for providing primary content having secondary content inserted therein which is targeted to individual ones of a plurality of users such as based on geographic or other logical boundaries (or alternatively the context or other attributes of the primary content) are desired. Ideally, these apparatus and methods would provide linear and non-linear content to non-legacy video-consuming devices (including personal computers (PCs), digital set-top boxes (DSTBs), portable media devices (PMDs), etc.) with the advertisements appropriate to the consumer's advertisement zone embedded therein. The apparatus and methods would thereby enable the user of the devices to see the same advertisement that he/she would see if that user had requested to view the same programming on his/her legacy device, or alternatively see other secondary content according to a prescribed rule set or preference selected by the subscriber, MSO, content source, or even the advertiser. Secondary content insertion methods and apparatus which targets the user, the device, and/or is related to the context of the primary content, would also ideally be provided such that it could be meshed with preservation of the desired advertising “zone” (or imposition of the alternative rule set or preferences) in a cohesive fashion.